[Windswept]

If I were a novice, I would feel very confused after reading all of the above posts, mainly because it's a lot of information all at once.

I know you are stubborn about not using television as a means of education, but when it comes to investing in the stock market, *not* using television as a resource would be like going into a cave and slamming a rock over the front.

I got into the market in 1998. But *before* I did, I spent at least three years of studying and learning about how the market works. I educated myself first by reading magazines on investment, like Money, Forbes, Individual Investor. You could go to the library and read the magazines they subscribe to monthly on finance and investing. Take good notes on the articles you find helpful.

Then you should faithfully watch PBS's Nightly Business Report every day and even take notes while watching on industries and stocks you'd like to study up on. Keep a notebook to preserve facts, ideas and issues you have found and want to study up on/research.

CNBC is an investment channel on cable and you should watch that as yet another source of information. But, I would trust the PBS Nightly Business Report more than comments made on CNBC. Ideally, the more *you* become educated/informed, the better you can judge on whom to trust. Information is absolutely *crucial* on a day to day basis when it comes to educating oneself on the world economy, the U.S. economy, and the market. All are intertwined.

You should know what's going on in Europe, for example, and give thought to how massive migration will affect/strain the European Union countries. It's helpful to know the past and present history of China and the huge effect it is having and will be having on world markets, especially our own. Apple, for example, is just one of many companies whose manufacturing is in China, and whose Chinese workers are affected on a day to day basis by the news in China, the changing of its economy, and by the Chinese leaders who run everything.

Because I carefully research each company, I almost never have regrets. However, I took a chance and invested in Alibaba, for example, and now I wish I hadn't. And why is that? Because we suddenly find that the Chinese leaders seem to have been manipulating the Chinese stock market, fearful of what might happen if the actual *truth* of the market's situation had gotten out. Who knows what the actual truth *is* there; and meanwhile, I'm going to hang on to my Alibaba stock and wait until it goes up. I do believe it will, but I don't trust the Chinese market now. Things happen in China *daily* that affect my stock. I think Alibaba's founder recently (last week) bought the main English-language newspaper there (in Beijing?). That's a pretty huge event when it comes to the value of a company and its stock in a communist country.

Back to Before getting into the market, I researched online brokerage firms as thoroughly as possible, and at the time, I decided on TDAmeritrade. The fee per trade is an issue, but equally important is the fee the company charges to *maintain* your account. If I were you, I'd call the customer service phone number for each brokerage company and ask what the yearly service fee adds up to. Make sure you get a straight answer. Ask if these periodic fees can be found in the "History" of your account. Ask how often the maintenance fee is charged.

Except for my first one or two trades that I had a broker do, just to be sure nothing got screwed up, I have never used a broker for advice or to do trading for me. I do it myself online, and I do it carefully. Before being able to buy stocks, I have to transfer funds from my checking account into my brokerage account. The ability to transfer funds you'll have to read up about online on the website of the brokerage you decide on. The site will give directions on what to do. At first, transfer a small amount, like 10 cents or $1.00, just to be sure the transfer works. You want the money in your brokerage account at least the day before you decide to buy.

You need to be studying up on which stocks you want to buy, and how much you want to spend on each. Then, once you're sure, perhaps you could wait for the market to take a dive, which it does often, and buy your stocks while the market is down. I buy stocks that I might wish to leave in my portfolio for possibly *years*. Then, you have to watch the daily news in case something happens to one of your companies. Usually I would leave the stock alone because I buy companies whose boards I trust. But I have a high tolerance for risk.

Edit:

When you are looking into which brokerage company you might want to use, see if one has an office relatively near your residence. Say you want to get money into your account fast, and the whole transfer of funds thing makes you nervous, especially when you are in a hurry. Well, if the brokerage office is near, you can just drive over and hand the representative a check to deposit into your account. I live way too far to do this on a regular basis, but I have driven across town once or twice when I wanted to speak with someone face to face. I wasn't asking for advice on what stocks to buy, but maybe I had procedural questions; or maybe I wanted to get money into my account fast.

For my first few trades, as I said, I told a broker (by phone, in my case) that I wanted him to do the buy for me, of what company and how much. He did the trade for a standard fee, and after that, I did it all on my own. He wasn't *my broker*, didn't give me advice, and back then, the broker fee for a broker-performed trade was probably something like $29.95. I imagine that a fair number of new investors might use a broker at first, simply to put through a few trades. But you might not need that. You do need to read up on market *jargon* terms in the vocabulary section of the trading page of your online account. I always have to read up on those terms each time, because I don't buy or sell that often, and after months have gone by, I can't remember the terms needed when placing a trade order.

Also, regarding money. I feel that the money you place on the market is money that you should be prepared to lose completely, if the absolute worst happens. It should *never* be money that you are counting on for your livelihood or your family's well-being. It needs to be money that you are prepared to lose and can get by without. If that is the case, then emotionally you'll be able to sleep okay at night and not be worrying about losing your life savings in the market! I really despise the market, because of the traders that cause the fluctuations. They don't operate as normal people would. Fearful of a loss, they sell all their clients' stock one day, causing the market to crash, and then buy it all back two days later. If you've bought companies that you feel are truly sound, then you will sit out these crashes. I never sold Apple at any time, for example, even when lots of people did. So my percentage growth for Apple is fairly huge, something like 540%, I think.